FILE - In an April 21, 2010 file aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning. BP focused too much on the little details of personal worker safety instead of the big systemic hazards that led to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill the U.S. Chemical Safety Board concluded in a presentation to be made in a hearing in Houston Tuesday July 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File) less

FILE - In an April 21, 2010 file aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning. BP focused too much on the little details ... more

Photo: Gerald Herbert, STF

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Former BP engineer Kurt Mix leaves the federal courthouse after a hearing Tuesday, April 24, 2012, in Houston. Federal prosecutors brought the first criminal charges Tuesday in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, accusing Mix of deleting more than 300 text messages that indicated the blown-out well was spewing far more crude than the company was telling the public at the time. less

Former BP engineer Kurt Mix leaves the federal courthouse after a hearing Tuesday, April 24, 2012, in Houston. Federal prosecutors brought the first criminal charges Tuesday in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, ... more

Photo: Pat Sullivan

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The spill that resulted from the Macondo disaster left thick oil on the water in Louisiana's Bay Jimmy.

The spill that resulted from the Macondo disaster left thick oil on the water in Louisiana's Bay Jimmy.

Photo: SAUL LOEB

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FILE - In a Saturday, June 12, 2010 file photo, crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washes ashore in Orange Beach, Ala. BP agreed late Friday March 2, 2012 to settle lawsuits brought by more than 100,000 fishermen who lost work, cleanup workers who got sick and others who claimed harm from the oil giant's 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster, the worst offshore oil spill in the nation's history. The momentous settlement will have no cap to compensate the plaintiffs, though BP PLC estimated it would have to pay out about $7.8 billion, making it one of the largest class-action settlements ever. After the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, the company ultimately settled with the U.S. government for $1 billion, which would be about $1.8 billion today. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File) less

FILE - In a Saturday, June 12, 2010 file photo, crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washes ashore in Orange Beach, Ala. BP agreed late Friday March 2, 2012 to settle lawsuits brought by more than ... more

Photo: Dave Martin, FRE

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Later, much later, still no criminal charges in oil spill

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The Clean Water Act turns 40 years old Thursday. It's a little soon for it to be losing its teeth.

Yet in the face of the biggest oil disaster to ever fall under its purview, the government has been uncharacteristically slow in bringing criminal charges. Saturday, just two days after the anniversary of the law taking effect, marks 2½ years since the Deepwater Horizon disaster unleashed the biggest offshore oil disaster in the nation's history.

In all that time, nothing has been filed against the companies involved - BP, Transocean and Halliburton.

The irony is that the Justice Department has prosecuted more criminal cases under the act than any other environmental statute, Uhlmann said. It filed charges against what's now Exxon Mobil just 11 months after the Exxon Valdez disaster, and they were resolved within two years - less time than has passed since the Deepwater Horizon accident.

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While the Deepwater Horizon case is more complicated - and the spill was 20 times larger than the Exxon Valdez one - the Clean Water Act requires only proof that the companies acted with negligence, which it defines as failure to use reasonable care under the circumstances.

BP's own internal report on the disaster, released in September 2010, clearly acknowledges its responsibility for the accident while also pointing the finger at Transocean and Halliburton.

Every major study on the accident done since then has come to similar conclusions.

In other words, charges under the Clean Water Act ought to be a layup.

In a brief filed in late August in the big civil case pending in New Orleans, the Justice Department offered a glimpse of its strategy, accusing the companies of gross negligence, which if proved would elevate the level of fines. Yet it hasn't backed that filing up by bringing an actual case.

Offered to settle

Meanwhile, Transocean, in a bond offering document last month, acknowledged offering to settle criminal claims for $1.5 billion, but the talks apparently led nowhere. Transocean said it hasn't had any discussions with the government since February.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

So far, the only criminal charges to emerge involve the hapless case of Kurt Mix, a low-level BP engineer who allegedly deleted a couple of text messages related to the cleanup effort, but who had no involvement in the disaster itself.

The assumption, following Mix's indictment in April, was that more cases would follow, but the ensuing six months of silence has been deafening.

"I don't think the company should get a pass while low-level employees like Kurt Mix bear the brunt of criminal prosecution," Uhlmann said.

In a recent speech at a law conference in Washington, Uhlmann blamed the delay in criminal charges on the Justice Department's decision, about a year after the accident, to move the case from the environmental crimes section to the criminal division, which was supposed to streamline decision-making. But the move meant "that the largest environmental crimes office in the world - which led the Exxon prosecution and had three decades of experience prosecuting oil spill cases - would no longer have a leadership role in the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history," Uhlmann said in his speech.

Chances diminish

At this point, charges aren't likely until after the election, but the longer the case drags on, the greater the chance that the feds won't bring any charges at all.

That's unconscionable given the scale of the disaster and the need to hold the companies responsible. Since 1972, the Clean Water Act has proven an effective tool in projecting federal waters from polluters.

Forty years later, it still has teeth. It's long past time for the government to use them in the Deepwater Horizon case.

Loren Steffy, loren.steffy@chron.com, is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Follow him online at blog.chron.com/lorensteffy, www.facebook.com/LorenSteffypage and twitter.com/lsteffy.